WHAT IS A NICK NAME???

In 1967 times were tough. A good job was hard to find especially if you were of draft age. Regardless of the tough times, I always had a grin on my face. My grinning made me look like the cat that swallowed the canary. October of 1967, I enlisted in the U.S. Army. After I arrived to boot camp in Ft. Benning, Georgia, the grin quickly changed. Somehow they always found a way to “wipe it offâ€

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After boot camp, January of 1968,, I was sent to Ft. Lewis, Washington for A.I.T. pulse. A week of intense jungle training. The weather was so damn cold and wet. Our Squad Leaders were two E-5 Sergeants-Shake and Bake. Each squad was also assigned two Buck Sergeants and a Platoon Sergeant, though we did not see a lot of him. I was the only Kid in the company from east of the Mississippi River so my southern accent did not “sit†well with those gentlemen.

As a member of the fourth squad the two Buck Sergeants were “ in charge†of us all the time. Whenever we had a formation we would get an ass chewing for something, anything. I stood at attention on the back row but I had this problem of grinning. The grinning drove the two Sergeants crazy so when we got an ass chewing I would get an extra chewing for grinning. They hollered and cursed at me every day, all day and half the night, for nine weeks. The more they cursed the more I grinned.

April 1968 I arrived in Vietnam as part of the Delta Company. I was also the new guy now-FNG. On this day, Wildcat Platoon was to walk point. The squad leader ordered me to walk point. The Platoon had been ordered to move up and down a particular ridge line several times. In the past, every time a Platoon walked that ridge, someone got killed or wounded.

You do not say no, refuse or negotiate the duty. The squad leader could have shot me on the spot and it would have been less painful. I was 18 years old. It was mid morning. As I started out I did some serious praying. Needless to say my grin fell to the ground. The jungle was so thick that I was walking on the Vietcong’s trail. I was a little over halfway up the ridge when the Company Commander called up to the front and asked who was walking point. I stopped and turned around. Looking back I saw that neither the radio operator nor the Platoon Sgt. were responding. We all just stared at each other. Nobody knew my name. I had been their 4 weeks and not a damn soul knew my name.

I was about to tell them when Bill “Henry†Laferriere spoke up and said “Smiley.â€. It was radioed back to the Commander the name “Smileyâ€. His reply, “Move faster Smileyâ€. The name stuck. They still call me Smiley to this day. It wasn’t until 1998 when I attended my first reunion that I found out that most of the guys still did not know my real name. Damn.

After I came home from Vietnam a good job was still hard to find. I was 19 years old, a Veteran of war, but still some places required employees to be 21 years old. I worked multiple jobs to make ends meet. One of the better ones was building houses. My brother in law was in the National Guard and he kept after me to join also. In November 1971, I did. It was a “try it one year programâ€. After a year if you did not like the Guard you could get out. Soon after entering the Guard those guys started calling me “PAW PAWâ€. That name stuck also.

Before the year was up I was offered a full time job with the Georgia Army National Guard. I was working in the Atlanta maintenance shop as a woodworker. I was the only carpenter in the shop. After about a month, Colonel Brown, the shop Superintendent, started to call me “Peanut†. This lasted about six months then it changed to “Termite†Unfortunately that name stuck like glue and all over Georgia I remained “Termite†until I retired in March of 2000.

Sometimes now when I go to the mailbox I find a letter or card addressed to “Smiley Harrisâ€.

My smile returns knowing it is from an old friend.

Any name you want to call me will work and long as you call me.

Tommy Harris, aka Smiley, Paw Paw, Peanut, or Termite.